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Range Anxiety

Elon Musk had a press conference today to discuss upcoming firmware improvements in version 6.2 and beyond.

Firmware 6.2:

New Range Assurance Application that is always running in the background. The car is always monitoring where it is in relationships to the superchargers and warns you if you may run out of electricity. This monitoring takes into account current weather conditions and terrain. You have to “opt-out” twice before running out of range.

Built in trip planner that considers best route for your trip along with best charging opportunities. The trip planner also figures out how long you need to charge at the location and lets you know on your smartphone that it is time to go.

The supercharger status is also on a network. The car is constantly communicating with this network.

Automatic safety braking

Side to side collision and blind spot warning

Improvements in radio reception

Valet mode similar to the Roadster

Nuanced accelerator and brake improvements

Firmware 7

New user interface

Auto steering features

Other updates:

Model X is coming out this summer, and the first real auto-drive features will be available in six months. Over the next twelve months all of Europe and the US (except for Northern Alaska) will be covered with superchargers. In 2015, Tesla will be deploying more superchargers in the world than the sum of all superchargers to date.

These new features are quite nice, and will be very helpful for those less technologically savvy. I have to admit I have never had any range anxiety while traveling. I am looking forward to having the whole continental US completely covered with superchargers. I hope that means I can take a trip through the lonely deserts of southern Nevada and Arizona without depending upon charging at a campground. For a true dream roadtrip, I would like a battery pack and a comfortable car that is still fun to drive that had a useful real world range of about 400 miles requiring just one charge per day.